https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute

Not sure how that compares to the response from other companies though. But I would guess favorably, from a user privacy perspective?

They also have faced pressure to scan iCloud content, but have afaik refused https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/victory-apple-commits-encrypting-icloud-and-drops-phone-scanning-plans

Where I am there’s a smallish internet provider, Sonic, that advertises almost-too-good-to-be-true service. As a former subscriber…nope, it’s pretty much what they say it is. It was gigabit fiber and I could iperf to a university server and get 900Mbps+ (depending on time of day). Fast.com would say 1Gbps.

My only complaint was that iirc the advertised price was for service, with an extra charge for router. BYO router meant you were charged slightly more for service (this is my recollection, not positive though).

They are a pretty vocal net neutrality advocate, and from what the tech told me they offer “best effort” service, meaning while ATT fiber may support gigabit, they’ll throttle it and upcharge you for the extra speed; Sonic, afaik, didn’t do that. They now offer 10Gbps Internet for I think the same price as the gigabit, but I think you need to BYO network gear to take advantage of it.

Unfortunately our new place doesn’t offer them, otherwise I would still be a subscriber.

Point being…too good to be true usually is just that, but sometimes it’s not 🤷

Behind in specs? Depends on which specs I guess — but CPU/GPU performance is AFAIK pretty great? https://www.tomsguide.com/features/iphone-15-pro-benchmarks

Features, yeah, depends on what you’re looking for. AFAIK iPhones are the only mainstream phone to offer satellite texting though.

I have both an iPhone (work) and an android (personal), and they both…kinda just work 🤷

In grad school I picked up a free used HP LaserJet. It had Ethernet, and could use generic/off brand cartridges. Yeah it was big and noisy but it was an awesome workhorse and it Just Worked (with out-of-the-box CUPS/Linux support too, IIRC).

How the mighty have fallen.

When I was in college, working for Google was a dream job for a lot of my friends. I have to think that hiring from that position is awesome — lots of really smart, motivated, enthusiastic grads, and you get to pick the best. I wonder if all that has changed?

Old article, and yes, “corporations are not friends” yada yada: https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companines-that-havent-had-layoffs-job-cuts-yet-2023-1

If I’m ever in the market for another job and have the luxury of choice, the layoff question will be pretty high up.

Not a lawyer; would this likely stand up in court? Obviously I wouldn’t risk it were I the dev, but just curious.

I’m really liking my orange pi 5 Plus. Wasn’t able to get the 32GB version, but 16GB is realistically more than I need anyway.

Main bonus for me over RPi is the RAM and storage — SD, eMMC, and NVME. The dual NICs and extra efficiency cores are a nice perk, too.

Cannot recommend Immich enough as a self-hosted Photos alternative. Obviously not a drop in replacement, and if you don’t want to self-host it’s not really feasible. But it is just awesome.

On the other hand, a completely open ecosystem works well too — ARM for Linux feels exactly like ARM on x86/64 in my experience. Granted this is for headless stuff on an (RPi and Orange Pi, both ARM, both running Debian), but really the only difference is the bootloader situation.

Important to note though that air resistance is nonlinear — it uses less energy to get from A to B slowly than quickly.

I’m fortunate enough to not be in a position where money is tight for food, but re: beans and rice, I absolutely love my instant pot!

Mexican-style beans are, IMHO, delicious, easy to make, and dirt cheap. I love them, our toddler loves them, and it’s easy on the wallet. Dry beans are really affordable, and a 25lb bag of rice is great to have in the pantry (note: careful with bulk brown rice as I think it can go rancid). A stove and a pot can do both, but an instant pot and a rice cooker makes it so easy.

I also drink a fair amount of coffee, but again, bulk or even just “make coffee at home” is very affordable. A few cups at Starbucks costs the same as a pound of beans (which yields many cups).

Fuck you, man! If you don’t like my fucking music, get your own fucking cab!

Yeah all the EEE/“Threads will kill us” talk reminds me of how Slack killed IRC by first offering an IRC gateway, and then killing off support. And after that IRC literally died.

/s

I saw a post here about how Threads’ biggest enemy at this point is antitrust, and a federated approach is a clever way around that. I think that makes much more sense than the EEE narrative.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-israel-hamas-strike-planning-bbe07b25

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/world/middleeast/hamas-iran-israel-attack.html

Not sure if that’s the type of source parent was referencing. My understanding of the consensus among certain groups is that the point of this conflict, from Iran’s perspective, is to make it unappealing for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel — which may be exactly what they’re getting, e.g.: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/14/saudi-arabia-puts-israel-deal-on-ice-amid-war-engages-with-iran-report

In this case presumably the MTB weighs more, which helps on downhills.

I think there’s a whole literature out there on rolling resistance as it relates to tire size and pressure as a function of road quality — for really nice pavement/velodrome, skinny tires at high pressure win, but for rougher surfaces (e.g., chipseal or less than perfect pavement) lower pressures can be advantageous.

Electric heater with more steps.

I grew up collecting mushrooms (US), but definitely restricted to only a few varieties which basically couldn’t be confused with anything deadly (some lookalikes maybe, but gastrointestinal distress — not death — would probably be the worst case). And yep, learned by going on mushroom hunting walks through the woods with local old timers who knew what was what.

“mod doesn’t like the post” doesn’t always mean “mod removes post.”

Could be referring to 90s Microsoft/Netscape history https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-windows.html

It was a class on sleeping+dreaming, an “easy A” class that was actually really interesting. Taught by William Dement, an old timer who helped pioneer the field of sleep research. As I recall there wasn’t much emphasis on what dreams mean — it was fairly matter-of-fact in that regard, which I liked.

The journal process, from what I recall, was just to write down every detail. In doing so you may realize patterns in your dream — recurring objects or themes, or anything really.

Another thing, especially for lucid dreaming, is to do “reality checks” throughout your (waking) day. This can be something like looking at a watch. Get in the habit of this — just randomly looking down and verifying that your watch is reading a valid time, and ask yourself if this makes sense, and if you’re dreaming. Most of the time you’ll look at your watch, say “yup 11:42, and I don’t think I’m dreaming.” The idea though is that this will be a habit that you perform in your dream, too — and hopefully, in your dream, your watch won’t make sense, you’ll ask yourself if you’re dreaming and boom! Lucid dream.

For me, lucid dreams were usually pretty short — as soon as I realized I was dreaming, I’d only have a little time before waking up. I also found it frustrating that I couldn’t always control my dreams, so I’d try to fly, and… nothing. Even though I knew I was dreaming.